Engineering skyrmion from spin spiral in transition metal multilayers

Abstract Skyrmions having topologically protected field configurations with particle-like properties play an important role in various fields of science. Our present study focus on the generation of skyrmion from spin spiral in the magnetic multilayers of 4d/Fe/Ir(111) with 4d = Y, Zr, Nb, Mo, Ru, Rh. Here we investigate the impact of 4d transition metals on the isotropic Heisenberg exchanges and anti-symmetric Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interactions originating from the broken inversion symmetry at the interface of 4d/Fe/Ir(111) multilayers. We find a strong exchange frustration due to the hybridization of the Fe-3d layer with both 4d and Ir-5d layers which modifies due to band filling effects of the 4d transition metals. We strengthen the analysis of exchange frustration by shedding light on the orbital decomposition of isotropic exchange interactions of Fe-3d orbitals. Our spin dynamics and Monte Carlo simulations indicate that the magnetic ground state of 4d/Fe/Ir(111) transition multilayers is a spin spiral in the ab -plane with a period of 1 to 2.5 nm generated by magnetic moments of Fe atoms and propagating along the a -direction. The spiral wavelengths in Y/Fe/Ir(111) are much larger compared to Rh/Fe/Ir(111). In order to manipulate the skyrmion phase in 4d/Fe/Ir(111), we investigate the magnetic ground state of 4d/Fe/Ir(111) transition multilayers with different external magnetic field. An increasing external magnetic field of ∼12 T is responsible for deforming the spin spiral into a isolated skyrmion which flips into skyrmion lattice phase around ∼18 T in Rh/Fe/Ir(111). Our study predict that the stability of magnetic skyrmion phase in Rh/Fe/Ir(111) against thermal fluctuations is upto temperature T ⩽ 90 K.